When One Door Closes
by ImpossibleJedi4
Summary: Another opens. Alex is a teen stuck in a boring, stressful life, wishing to escape. Ed is a boy on a mission. They both want change to happen, but when it does... Is the good only one sided? Can they find a way to fix things? What will Al do? And how will this affect the future and the Promised Day? OC, no pairings, follows manga. [CANCELLED]
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Well, here goes nothing. I've never written more than an FMA oneshot before, but I've been reading all sorts of fics and have a neat idea. I know I know, OCs tend to turn people off but I write slightly better using them and, after creating them for 13 years, I hope I can integrate poor Alex into the FMA world.**

 **Warning, I've only read the manga, so I'll be using manga numbers not episode numbers! I'll also be rereading it as I write this, so hopefully, fewer mistakes. If there are any, please point them out!**

 **R &R, but please be kind. I can take criticism but not direct hate. Thanks.**

 **One last thing... I use an iPad, so autocorrect hates on me some days.**

CHAPTER 1

Escapism.

That's what reading was. Or, in this case, looking. Because dealing with manga was as much looking at the art as it was reading, perhaps more so.

Alex sighed and flicked the screen of her iPad, wet hair dribbling onto the screen. The next page of Fullmetal Alchemist appeared as if by magic.

Stupid triggers. She couldn't even read or watch TV anymore. SOMEONE just HAD to die and make her sob all over again. Just a day without getting emotional. One day! Her face was set in grumpy expression.

She had been ranted to an Internet friend (the two of them had a mutual listen-to-the-other's-rants agreement) when the idea of rereading FMA occurred to her. She's only read it once, yet she already knew how it ended. Yes, of course there was Nina and Hughes, but she _knew_ to expect those. Plus it was all free online? Well except for the funny extras at the end. But still, too good to be true!

So here she was, a high school senior on the brink, on the verge of graduation, finding solace in the adventures of two younger boys.

She was feeling more content than she had in...

Ages.

It was great.

One of her favorite scenes was up. Al and Ed were fighting Scar in the alleyway, and Roy and his team were racing to save them. The first time she read it, she'd been worried. Would they be okay? Would Ed lose _another_ limb? Or worse? What would become of Scar?

Now she knew. Ed almost gave up his life in exchange for Alphonse's. His automail arm had been blasted away by Scar's deconstructive alchemy, meaning that he couldn't clap and transmute any more. His brother, currently inhabiting a suit of armor with only his soul, had been taken out of the fight. He wasn't injured, being only metal, but some of his armor (such as his right arm) was gone, and he now could only call out as his brother almost traded himself over to Scar's vendetta. But Roy had arrived just in time. But the scene in the alley had been touching and electric, and most importantly it had changed Ed.

Somehow Edward Elric had become even MORE determined, if that was even possible. Strange how near-death experiences change people.

Alex sighed. She'd moved many times in her life, which hadn't always changed her for the better, but she'd never had to stare death in the face for someone she cared about. She was relieved about that to be sure, but... Some days her friends didn't believe in her love for them. Surely facing down a murderer in an alley would have proved that. And Al and Ed were perfect examples that the strongest bonds of love don't have to be romantic.

But hey she was living in the real world. Where magic wasn't real and everyone assumed things all the time. She would just continue reading quietly.

Hmphing, the skinny, bespectacled girl sat up, staring at the panel showing Ed's defeated, downcast eyes. Vaguely, she dreamed of being able to draw humans so reliably so her own Webcomic wouldn't look awful.

Then something caught her eye.

Static. Black and white pixels were flickering around the edges of that panel.

Suddenly _all_ of the panels switched to static, their images gone. Alex sat bolt upright, frightened. Had she gotten a virus? The entire screen went fuzzy and slowly, a black outline appeared.

A human, no eyes or definition, just a grinning leer of a mouth.

Truth.

In that split second in which she saw him, she could see the individual pixels writhing into his shape, from a darker definition around his outline to his pure white form. Strings of a single pixel width defined his teeth and mouth. The image? Terrifying.

Alex only had time to yelp before white light engulfed her.

 **AN: Whew chapter 1 done. Also, if you ever see anything with [i] next to it or anything in brackets, please tell me! I use BB code notation to remind myself where bold and italics go and edit it out later, but I may one day miss some!**

 **Next chapters WILL be longer!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Okay from here on out more FMA will be in it, promise. Oh and PS? Sorry for this chapter in advance.**

An alley. Seriously?! Edward was thinking that Alphonse had HAD to have known better. Why would you duck into a dark alley when a maniac was chasing you?

"Now he can't follow us!" shouted Alphonse triumphantly. Ed turned and had to take a step back. His little brother had transmuted a towering stone wall from the street to block the entrance.

Edward smiled broadly. Even at a bad time like this, he was proud of his brother's ability to perform alchemy while in the suit of armor. At first, he had thought that Al would lose his abilities. But it had quickly become apparent that he hadn't. Maybe the fact that alchemy was the only thing keeping him alive had let the younger Elric keep his powers even when his corporeal body was gone.

Suddenly a fist sized hole was punched into the stone (and into Ed's thoughts.) And soon after that, the wall _exploded_. Their scarred pursuer retracted his left hand from where it had been resting on the stone wall just moments earlier.

"How!?" shrieked an alarmed Ed as he easily fell into a combat posture.

The following fight was brutal. Few words were exchanged, but Ed quickly found out that this man, Scar, was targeting state alchemists, calling them 'devils.' He only seemed able to destroy, something Ed found peculiar as he divorced his mind from the fight.

And then the man hit Al. His armor crackled and broke, stained with transmutation marks.

"ALPHONSE!" Ed cried.

"Keep fighting, Ed! Leave me here! Run!" shouted the still-living suit of armor.

"It's empty?" questioned Scar as he stepped backwards hastily. The Ishvalan's eyes narrowed. "I thought that when I transmuted the armor, the one inside would be killed too. Clearly this is more complicated than I thought."

Edward dashed at his and tried to throw a punch, but the man caught his automail arm. A flash of light and they both backpedaled... But nothing appeared to have happened except the sleeve of Ed's coat tore.

"Automail? I see... No wonder my human destruction didn't work. But that arm... Has to go."

And with that, Scar grasped Edwards's metal wrist and blasted his automail into scrapmetal.

"AH!" Ed yelped, in surprise and slight pain as his nerves registered a problem and shrapnel grazed his skin. Sitting down heavily, he landed next to his brother, whose left leg had been disconnected and his left arm mostly destroyed.

"Get up, brother! Run!" Alphonse pleaded. Then, in a quiet voice, Ed spoke.

"You're only after me... Right?"

Scar nodded. "Only you have taken on the sin of becoming a state alchemist."

"Then promise me you'll let him live."

"BROTHER WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Alphonse screamed at him. Ed flinched but moved forwards a little.

"Then please just take me and leave him alone." And Edward bowed his head. Scar placed his left palm on the boy's golden hair in a sick mockery of a gentle parent. Edward's eyes turned up to meet his, full of fear and dismay but mainly of defiance.

"Do you have any gods you wish to pray to?" Scar asked in a whisper.

"I don't believe in gods, and if there are any, they already hate me," Edward hissed brokenly. His golden gaze slid to Al, who was silent in horror. "Keep going," he said. "I've now made your path into a river of mud. Keep going, brother."

"Brother please you can't leave me! Don't do this! No! Nonononono!" Al was hysterical, trying to get at his brother. As he struggled, the remainder of his left arm clattered to the stone and he fell onto his side.

Helpless.

Ed once again looked at Scar. Scar stared back. Somewhere deep, in the soul of his conscience, he knew that this child couldn't possibly have been one of the state alchemists to attack his family and home. He was simply too young. But a mission was a mission of he had to wipe out the next generation of these filthy dogs...

So be it.

"Please don't make it hurt too much." Ed's whisper broke through the howling of his armored brother. He let the child-like request out before he could stop it. Ed had almost given in to fear. He hoped Scar would act soon...

Scar could only kill people in one way... One very painful way. He ignored the stabs of conscience and activated his alchemy.

Alphonse's wordless scream echoed through his hollow body, amplified tenfold. He met his brother's eyes with his emotionless pink ones.

There was a supernova of pain in each of those fading golden irises, and a lifetime of sadness.

What the brothers didn't know was that supernovas were, yes, the death of stars, but also the birth of new ones.

There was an intense flash of white.

 **AN: Since I don't think anyone reads this yet, I don't feel too bad about the cliffhanger. Next we'll get to explore equivalent exchange. Yep, this is an OC-goes-to-Amestris etc fic, but this one has an explanation!**

 **Poor Ed he didn't even last two chapters.**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: I'm taking some liberty with the way the Gate and souls and stuff work, so this may get long winded? I don't know, my other chapters were kinda woefully shorter than I wanted so maybe not.**

 **I've spent too much time reading depressing Gravity Falls fanfic today, I needed something better to do. (Why I'm obsessed with sad fanfic I'll never know.) So here is chapter 3.**

An endless, white vacuum. A limitless universe in which you could hit a wall you never saw coming. Everything was pristine as snow, no shadows, no nothing. You could journey for days and think that you didn't move an inch.

However there was one spot that was smack in the center of this in-between world, though no one would ever know it. That's the Truth.

The spot is literally the Truth. Well, the home of the being called Truth anyways. Him and his gate. That fuzzy black outline of a faceless human.

This was precisely where Alex found herself standing, casting no black silhouette onto the surface that made up the ground. The girl with frizzy brown hair found herself directly facing the intricately carved Gate.

"Woah..." She reached out a trembling hand to touch it. Sometimes the shaking happened when she was either scared, having a panic attack, or, in this case, having so much mental overload she was almost in shock.

She sure was happy though.

As she ran her hand over the carving of the tree, she felt the reality of the cold stone.

"So this really is real, huh?" she said. She often talked to herself out loud as a way of making her thoughts concrete.

"As real as you and I," said a strange, echoey voice. Alex spun quickly around and saw two things. The first was Truth, legs crosses, floating motionless in midair.

The second thing was Edward Elric. He was mostly transparent, drenched in blood, and looked extremely surprised, but uncharacteristically frightened. He too was floating, but was slowly drifting up and down.

"Truth you b*****d!" he yelped. "What's going on?!"

Truth turned to him and sighed. "You're dead, Pipsqueak."

"WHO ARE TOU CALLING SO TINY HE COULD SNEAK BETWEEN THE CRACKS IN THE GATE?!" Ed flailed both of his arms, shrieking. His motion caused drops of blood to fly from him, but they disappeared in thin air before they hit the ground.

Once he calmed down, Ed growled, "and I know I'm dead. This sure as heck isn't the afterlife, though."

"No it's not!" chortled Truth. "You're in limbo! Here with me, forever!"

"WHAT?! Why?" Edward cried, sounding pained.

"Equivalent Exchange. Just ask her, kid." Truth pointed to Alex, who had been watching the argument silently, wondering when she'd fainted and dreamed up such a weird thing.

"Who are you?" Edward crossed his arms and floated there, glaring at her. The bloodstains were now fading, leaving him looking more like the Edward she knew. He also seemed to be growing more and more corporeal as minutes passed.

"My name's Alex... And I honestly have no idea how I got here. "I mean... This place is amazing and all, but I sure didn't want anyone to die to bring me here."

"You had no choice in the matter," Truth waved a hand lazily. "It was fate."

"I don't believe in that stuff," said both Ed and Alex at the same time. They looked at each other, both amused and confused.

"Well too bad. See, Edward Elric, your story is legend in another world. Her world." Truth nodded at Alex and she cracked a smile.

"Well, it's not really legend, just a manga and a kids cartoon... But to those of us who've read or watched it, I suppose I'd call it legendary." Edward, too stunned to snark at this, hung with his mouth agape.

"So this girl was reading about the scene with you and Scar and Alphonse in the alleyway... Just as you were living it. Time is quite strange. I must invite him over here some time... But anyways. That somehow triggered a change in your story, Edward. In reality, you should have lived. But this rare converging of worlds reshaped your fate, I'm afraid."

"So this is all your fault!" The blond alchemist whirled to face Alex, golden eyes spitting flames. "You cost me my LIFE, you... You..." Suddenly his fire turned to fear and sadness instead of anger. "Al... What did I do?" he murmured.

"Sheesh kid, it wasn't her fault! She got pulled into this, same as you." Truth stretched insubstantial fingers on the ends of ethereal arms. "Okay this was the exchange. Listen closely. So Edward, your soul is here. Your body is back home in Amestris. Yet both Alex's body and soul are here. So this is what's going to happen. Your Gate of Alchemy will be going to her. It seems weird that it won't be going to me, but I have you! Your gate would be wasted here. So Alex gets her mind, body, and your alchemy in Amestris to take your place-"

"No one can replace me!" Ed cried, angered again. "I'm the freaking Fullmetal Alchemist!"

"Yes yes you are. I know that. We've met before." The sheer sarcasm of that entity known as Truth was staggering. On top of that, Alex was still very confused.

"Let me get this straight. Ed traded his soul and alchemy for my body and soul. So far so good. But as to why you're giving me his alchemy, I'm lost."

"Well, this cosmic event sort of ripped you from your life. If I didn't give you SOMETHING, that wouldn't be equivalent, now would it?" Truth laughed.

"But what about me?" Edward shouted. "I was ripped from everything too!"

"But you made that choice on your own, kid. Oh, and Alex? If you ever find a way back to your home, I'm pretty sure time is frozen there. Dimensions sure are weird, huh?"

"Hey why are you being so... Nice to her?! You sure hate me, what makes her so different?" Ed floated over to Truth and jabbed a finger at him.

"Well, I do have a heart, mister alchemist. No really, some guy tried to give me his heart in exchange for bringing back his dead lover. Idiot. But that's besides the point! This girl is from another dimension! She's kind of unique. Plus, she's politer than you, and didn't freak out when she saw me. And she thinks the Gate is cool," Truth finished triumphantly.

"Ug whatever," Edward replied, floating forlornly over to lean against the Gate. Almost instantly though, he shot up. "Hey wait, where is Al's body?!"

"I was sort of wondering that myself, actually," Alex mused.

"Well, this isn't your Gate anymore, Edward. It's hers. So Alphonse's body isn't here right now."

"WHAT? Do you mean... He's... Stuck? Forever!?" Edward seemed dangerously close to tears, and this alarmed Alex. That kid only cried in private... She knew how much this must be hurting him.

"D-don't worry, Ed," she stammered. "I'll continue on with Al. We can look for a way to reverse this, I promise. Then you can get him his body back."

"You... You'd really do that for us?" He seemed floored, his eyes wide.

"Of course! Well, I feel like I've known you for a while since I've read your stories. You deserve more than this... Plus an adventure would be fun, while I'm here. But I don't want to stay forever. I have people I care about back home too. But while I'm here of course I'll help." She didn't know how useful she'd be, with her lack of physical prowess, but he held out a hand for a shake anyways. "Okay?"

"Okay." Ed shook with his metal hand, smiling for the first time since she'd met him.

"Enough with all the sappy stuff, let's get on with it!" Truth grumped, floating over to the Gate. "Alex, are you ready to see... Everything? You need to pass through here on the way to Amestris."

"I'm ready," she said, steeling herself but still smiling.

"Then let's go," shouted Truth, and the doors opened into the blackness beyond.

 **AN: In this story, Truth isn't really a bad guy or a good guy, just a deity trying to do his job. Sometimes he helps, sometimes he hurts, but he's fair. I see a lot of stories that sort of go off him being evil but I chose to portray him differently.**

 **Please R &R!**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Sorry for the wait! Slight blood ahead. Don't really like the beginning but I couldn't get it to sound right so oh well.**

Alex's eyes were open the whole time. From when she saw all of the knowledge that lay behind the gate (a truly staggering amount), to when the black arms of the Gate became a swirling vortex of color, to when she hit the pavement in an alley. For some reason, she didn't blink the entire time.

Until she saw the body.

She was extremely close to the face of Edward Elric. And, as she knew, he was dead.

"Ack!" Scrambling upright, she began to shiver, from sensory overload and the fact that she had just appeared next to a dead body. Plus she had a wicked headache from all that input from Truth.

"Edward..." moaned a small child's voice. She sat up rigidly, hearing such unimaginable pain in that voice. She also recognized it.

"A-Alphonse?" She saw the suit of armor near the wall to her right, tilted over on its side and missing three limbs.

"How do you know my name?" Alphonse responded, tilting his head up so he could look at her.

Footsteps echoed from outside the alleyway. "They're in here!" another familiar voice called. Alex gasped a skittered backwards until her hand came in contact with a pool of blood and she yelped. Both her and Alphonse looked up as Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, Maes Hughes, and Jean Havoc dashed into the alley.

"D**n, he got away," muttered Roy, looking around for Scar. The man had vanished without a trace. Even Alphonse hadn't seen him go.

"S-sir..." Hawkeye tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. One of her hands covered her moth and her eyes grew wide.

They all now noticed the entire scene of the alleyway. Alphonse was badly damaged, bits of scrapmetal littering the ground around him. A girl whom none of them recognized was sitting, splattered in blood, completely shocked and breathing rather erratically.

But they all took that in rather quickly because the only thing at the moment that they cared about was Edward Elric.

He was lying face down in a massive puddle of blood, obviously dead. Red trails dripped from his mouth, his nose, his ears, and even his eyes. Those eyes weren't really golden any more, with blood pooling in his irises and pupils. He had visible cuts on other parts of his body, and he looked strangely deflated in death. A mixture between a grimace and a snarl was on his face, as if he tried to fight death in the split second it came for him, but also a look of despair.

"Edward!" Mustang positively screeched, and bolted over to him. Lifting the dead boy from the blood, shaking him as if that would bring him back. Hughes following and Hawkeye checking his pulse to confirm what they already knew.

Alex was so confused and her head hurt so much that everything had taken on a too-bright quality. Everything was becoming echoey, and the anguished cries of the people beside her were hurting her ears... Vision was now becoming fuzzy...

For the first time in her life, Alex passed out.

She gasped and sat up. A bed? A sparsely furnished room? What?

And a suit of armor in the corner.

"That's where he used to sleep, you know." A listless voice echoed from the motionless hulk.

"Huh?" Alex managed. It was dark now, probably late at night... She wondered why they had taken her back here. Why hasn't they just left her? Of course the team had more pressing things on their mind...

"Edward. That's his bed. You don't belong there," Alphonse continued coldly, soulfire eyes meeting hers. He was still missing three limbs, so a sheet had been pinned over the empty cavities.

"I... I know," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing her face with her hands. "I'm really confused too. Even if Truth explained a lot, he-"

"You saw Truth?" Alphonse exclaimed, with both anger and shock. "Why didn't you tell us?! Did you perform the taboo too?!"

"If you didn't notice, I passed out before I could speak a word!" she shot back and she easily strode over to him, jabbing a finger in his direction. Then her tone softened and she sat right in front of him.

"Look... I know you lost your brother. I've been lucky and haven't truly lost anyone like that, but... People have left me. I know how angry loss makes you feel, how hopeless and terrible and useless. But from what I know about you, you're none of those things."

He cut her off. "You know me? But I've never seen you before..."

The girl sighed and wiped her glasses. The rims had a teal and green scaled pattern, kin of like a dragon should look. "I suppose explanations are in order." She replaced her glasses and look him in the eye.

"But don't expect this to make a lot of sense. I'm repeating what Truth told me, and you probably know how confusing he was from what your brother told you." She took a deep breath.

"First of all, I'm not from this world. I'm from an alternate dimension, one that's sort of _through_ the Gate... We have no alchemy, no... Nothing. Nothing 'magical.' It's kind of sad, really... But that's why I read a lot, for stories where cool stuff can happen. But that's where you guys come in.

"In my world, you're just a story. A manga, a book of pictures displaying your stories. I know all about you guys... Roy and you and Ed and Winry... Your parents..."

When Al spoke up again, his voice was definitely shakier. "That's impossible..."

"I thought that too," she agreed. "But it's not. Apparently I was reading the scene in the alleyway exactly as you were living it, and this altered your reality... Edward opened a gate by dying that pulled me here."

"So it's your fault!" Alphonse's voice was getting louder again. "No, wait... You're lying! You don't know anything about us, this is all a stupid trick because I'm weak right now because my brother DIED! You performed human transmutation from somewhere else and was working with Scar!"

"I am NOT and I DID not," she hissed.

"Then PROVE IT!" Alphonse screamed.

"Your father left when you were very young. Edward once transmuted a toy horse for your mother. Winry likes to peg Edward with wrenches when his automail breaks. Pinko is even shorter than Ed but they still fight." She glared harshly at him. "Want me to go on?"

"B-but... How?... What?!" Alphonse was to confused to actually argue, and Alex took the opportunity to go on.

"When I met Truth, he said that Edward's soul and alchemy was at the Gate. And my body and soul was at the gate. That was the equivalent exchange. No one started the reaction on purpose. Scar was just the one who sort of started the whole thing. The catalyst.

"But then Truth let me have Ed's alchemy Gate while I'm here because he said it was useless to him..."

"Wait while you're here?" Alphonse asked, seemingly done arguing the point that she couldn't be from another world. She nodded.

"Yeah. I've got to go back home at some point, and as long as I have your gate... You can't get your body back. So we've got to fix this. This isn't how your story goes in my world. But we've got to get Edward back. And I'll help do that."

Alphonse nodded. "Okay..." he managed shakily. "So... He isn't dead?"

"No, he's dead... I saw him at the Gate. He was grateful that I offered to help you..."

Alphonse would have been tearing up if he could be. He wanted to see his brother more than anything... More than he wanted his own body.

"He's in limbo. He can't move on, so we can bring him back with the right alchemy and ingredients... I'm just not sure what yet. Okay?" She smiled, sort of sadly. She would have thought that she'd be hanging out with the main character if she visited a fandom of hers, not that she'd only be there because of his death.

"Want... Want me to try and fix you?" The bag of metal parts from the alleyway was sitting next to Al, and she dumped out the bag with a clang.

"But you've never used alchemy, and..." Al figuratively bit his lip.

"I can perform circleless alchemy. I have your brother's Gate. I promise I actually know what I'm doing. I know the theory, even if I've never done it before." And before Alphonse could protest, she'd clapped her hands and pressed them to the metal, alchemical lightning swirling around. It was the same color that Ed's had been.

Alphonse shuddered lightly, but when he dared look down, he found that he was perfectly whole.

"I guess some of your brother's talent is in me too," Alex breathed in amazement. "I wish I could do that back home..."

At once, the door flew open and the scared face of Fuery peeked in. "I heard alchemy..."

"Alex was just fixing my armor," Alphonse replied, sounding calmer than he had all night. Then Roy's visage joined Fuery's in the doorway. He looked like he'd aged thirty years and his eyes looked red.

"Alex, you had best get some sleep. We can discuss options tomorrow, but first, there will be Fullmetal's funeral." Then he withdrew.

Alex and Alphonse looked at each other. That was going to be the hardest morning in the world.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hate to say it but I'm gonna cancel this FMA fic. I'm not feeling it any more... Kinda sucks because I was really into it when I started and could have written it all at once but I was too busy with getting ready for college and stuff. So... Yeah all inspiration for this is, alas, gone.**

 **PM me if you wanna see where it was gonna go, haha.**

 **Good thing no one really read this! I'll be keeping it up anyways. ;)**

 **Hope you enjoy my other fics!**


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